I fell in love working in speech therapy for middle school! Don't let this awesome group intimidate you, but read about the pros and cons!
Manage your middle schoolers during speech therapy with my 10 best strategies for behavior management to encourage and motivate!
Social communication skills are some of the most valuable skills we can teach our students.
When attention spans are short, these do the trick!
Fluency (or stuttering) therapy is an area that many SLPs feel under-prepared to serve. While you may have had an excellent professor on the subject in grad school, it tends to be a lower incidence
Memory wheels are a great end of school year activity for upper elementary and middle school students. Learn about memory wheel templates.
Speech therapy for older children with articulation disorders can be challenging. Here are some tips for assessment, treatment, and carryover.
10 inexpensive rewards to use in your middle school class.
How I use Google Forms to organize, sort and keep track of important information as a Speech Therapist!
Looking for engaging speech therapy activities for older students? Discover novel ideas that spark creativity and beat boredom!
I'm always looking for new vocabulary journal ideas. I like these printable templates because they're simple, and students in both elementary and middle school can use them. #vocabularyactivities #firstgrade #secondgrade #thirdgrade #fourthgrade #fifthgrade
One question I am asked a lot is, "What are your favorite games and activities to use with middle school students in speech-language therapy?" Today, I would like to share with you my top 13 favorites! One
FREE Getting to Know You Activities for Middle & High School SLPs
Wondering how to sequence grammar instruction? You'll want this list that scaffolds grammar lessons so that one skill builds upon the next.
My best tips for teaching /r/ in articulation therapy! Placement cues, product reviews and /r/ word lists to help your students succeed!
I know many of you have told me that you struggle with finding age-appropriate materials for your middle school students. I know, because I struggle with this too! You can check out some great
Do you want to find motivating games for the older students on your caseload? Although I do not work with that age group now, I have worked with them in the past. It is a very difficult group to work with. Curriculum expectations are getting more intense, self awareness kicks in, and planning can be a nigh ...
Parents should be your partners in the classroom, even at the secondary level. In this #2ndaryELA Twitter chat, middle school and high school English Language Arts teachers discussed parent communication best practices for positive and negative academics/behaviors, technology tips, and ways to involve students in the process. Read through the chat for ideas to implement in your own classroom.
Fluency (or stuttering) therapy is an area that many SLPs feel under-prepared to serve. While you may have had an excellent professor on the subject in grad school, it tends to be a lower incidence
Hi! So, if you have been following me, you know that I have stepped into the world of middle school this year. Two days a week I hang out with the "I'm too cool for school" crowd... just kidding... sort of. While my middle school students are mostly sweet and funny, sometimes I am just one more person trying to make them do work and speech is just one more thing taking away their study hall time. Some days, I can tell that speech is just NOT where they want to be. I get it. Many of them have to have extra reading classes, constantly have working lunch instead of getting to just hang out with their friends like other students, their study halls are taken away to go receive extra help (or speech), and some even have after school resource time. On days where I can tell that my students have just had too much, I set my plans aside and pull out something a little less stressful: a board game. Now mind you, the games still allow the students to practice their language skills - it's just a little more low key and more fun. Here are some games that I have found to be a hit with my middle schoolers while still focusing on language and pragmatic skills. {Affiliate links provided for your convenience} I play this game the traditional way, as well as backwards by having the students give adjectives to label the noun. It's a great game for working on descriptions as well as defending opinions. I love In a Pickle! It's a fun way to talk about word relationships as well as more defending opinions. Keep your eyes peeled fro Cranium's Whoonu at a thrift shop - it is a fun game for a social skills group. It helps students get to know each other and gets them talking about topics other than Minecraft and video games (which I now know far more about than I ever wanted to know). Bubble Talk is a fantastic game for students working on understanding facial expression, perspective taking, and making inferences. Definitely an essential for your middle school supply arsenal. You've Been Sentenced was another great thrift shop find. Students must use the words on the pentagon shaped cards to make a grammatically correct coherent sentence. The other players act as judges and must give a yay or nay to the sentence, which means everybody is actively involved. I first played Man Bites Dog when another SLP brought it into the office at the rehab facility I work at part time. After playing it, I had to have it for my middle schoolers! Students work on creating headlines using the cards they are given. It is great for targeting word order and vocabulary. I also add a rule that the students must state 3 details that could be included to target main idea vs details. I recently purchased Funglish and it has been a big hit with my competitive students. Students must use word tiles to describe a word while others attempt to guess the word. The only thing I don't like about this game is the timer can be a little short for some of my students who are low readers. I just used the timer on my cell phone to give them a little bit more time. I lucked out and found Moods already in my therapy room at school. It is great for my students working on understanding and expressing emotions. Students are given a sentence and must say it with a given emotion (which usually the sentence does not match the expected emotion). The other students try to guess the emotion based on the student's tone of voice and body language. Another lucky find from the SLP who was at my middle school before me: Blurt. This game is great for word finding and vocabulary building. Students are given a definition and then must come up with a word to match the definition. I take away the racing component and have all students write down an answer they think works and then give points. Otherwise I find that some of my students just cannot keep up. Say the Word is a different style game in that it is a cooperative game. The students must work together to win the game instead of playing against each other. I like this because it forces my students to communicate with each other and work together as a team. In this game, students must create a story using words on a cards that are drawn. Each person must start from the beginning of the story and then add on a part of the story when it gets to their turn. If they forget a part of the story, the other students can give clues (the directions say to act out the clues, but you know - its speech. I have the students give clues without saying the word). I also add a rule that the students must include story grammar elements to form a complete story instead of random events with no clear story line. This game is great for working as a team, auditory memory, and narrative language. Do you work with older students? Comment and share what your favorite language games are! ~Erin Follow
Ready to "cook up" a great first day of school? It's easy with this recipe for a successful start to the school year! PREP: ➤ Think about how you will set the tone for your classroom on the first day of school. ➤ Plan to keep students engaged and active. ➤ Prepare to build a positive rapport with students from the first instant that they become a part of the classroom community. INGREDIENTS: ➤ Warm-Up Activity ➤ Get-to-Know-You Activity ➤ Game that gets students out of their seats ➤ Get-to-Know-the-Teacher Activity ➤ Writing Prompt ➤ Extension Activity Once you've gathered your ingredients, you can get "cooking!" (CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FREE RECIPE!) PROCEDURE: STEP 1: Begin with a warm-up activity. Place an activity on students' desks that they can complete independently. You might try a simple survey or poster. An All About Me poster is a quick way to learn about students. You can even gather them together for an awesome classroom display. Or, a survey is a wonderful way to collect information about students. You might include questions about where students like to sit, their favorite way to learn, and activities that they enjoy so that you can start connecting with students. Another awesome warm-up activity is an "All About You" name tag. Students answer questions about themselves while coloring in a name tag based on their responses. Then, students can place the name tag on their desks to help you learn your students' names. This activity is particularly awesome if you have multiple sets of students. You can collect the name tags and re-distribute them each day during each class while you learn names. Oh, and as a bonus, you can gather them together and leave them with substitute teachers throughout the year! If you'd like to check out ready-made Back to School Warm-Ups, just click here for the poster, here for the survey, and here for the name tags. STEP 2: Mix in a get-to-know-you activity. Give students a chance to share about themselves and learn about their classmates with an engaging get-to-know-you activity. One of my favorites is a doodle-inspired mini-book. Students transform a single sheet of paper into a doodley mini-book all about themselves. After students make the mini-book it's fun to hang them on a clothesline. Then, as students finish their work during the first days of school, you can encourage fast-finishers to grab a classmate's mini-book and learn about him or her. Check out the doodle mini-book HERE. Or, you could have students create this 3-D About Me Activity. Students create an infographic-style book about themselves. After answering some simple questions, they do a little cutting and gluing to create a 3-D "About Me" display. These are especially fun because students can set them on their desks and then everyone can tour around the classroom and learn about their peers. (These are awesome for Open House too!) Learn more HERE. STEP 3: Scatter in an activity that gets students moving. Since students crave opportunities to get up and out of their seats, plan to get your class moving on the first day of school. You might have students complete a scavenger hunt or even play a learning game that requires students to move around. I'm a huge fan of this simple get-to-know-you activity that gets students moving (and you can download it for FREE here.) First, students make paper airplanes. They write their name and 3 interview questions on the wings. Then, students line up shoulder-to-shoulder and launch the planes. Next, they pick up a classmate's plane, find him or her, and ask the interview questions. You can repeat the airplane launch as often as you'd like! Find everything you need to do this activity in this FREEBIE. If you'd like to combine movement and learning on the first day of school, then you and your students will love this Back to School Doodle Infographic. First students fill in the infographic with facts about school. There are 21 facts and you can hide them around the room to get students moving. Then, they put together the infographic to make a fun and doodle-y poster! Check it out HERE. STEP 4: Sprinkle in a chance for students to get-to-know-you (their teacher). On the first day of school, students are very curious about you. They want to learn about you, so you'll want to be sure to share about yourself. You can give a simple biography of yourself, or you might try these easy and engaging activities: Create a teacher interview question along with 4 or 5 prize cards for each student in your class. Then, tape the questions and the prize cards under students' seats before class begins. During class, explain to students that they all have something under their chairs. It might be a question and it might be a prize. If they get a prize card, have students keep it quiet. Then, call on students. They can either read a question for you to answer or reveal that they won a prize. If they won, you might give them a pencil, piece of candy, or a homework pass. You can find all my favorite questions HERE. Or, you might have students complete a "Teacher Guess" about you. First, they predict the answers to questions about you. Then, as you reveal the answers, they earn points for every correct prediction. It's a fun activity that students truly enjoy! You can check it out HERE. STEP 5: Add a fun writing prompt to your back to school activities. A writing prompt is a great way to gather a baseline for students' writing on the first day of school. You might give students a simple prompt about their summer or goals for the new school year. However, I love to add a fun creative writing prompt into the mix. For example, with this writing prompt students select a setting, character, problem, and 3 random objects. Then, they need to work them all into a story. It's fun, engaging, and a great way to see where your students are starting the school year. Find this writing prompt HERE or check out this collection of 10 creative writing activities. STEP 6: Top it off with a review of tomorrow's warm-up. Set students up for success during your next day of school by quickly reviewing what they will need to do when they arrive to class. If you're planning to have students work through warm-ups like these This or That ELA warm-ups where students choose to do the "this" or the "that" activity, then you might quickly review what will be waiting on their desks when they arrive. Taking the time to preview tomorrow's warm-up is a great way to set expectations for students! If you're looking for some daily warm-ups, you might want to check out these This or That ELA warm-ups or these This or That Writing warm-ups! STEP 7: Don't forget to have an extension activity just in case your lesson ends early. I love playing games like "Move If You..." which you can find for FREE HERE. While you may never get to the extension activity, it's a lifesaver if you need it! TIPS: When you're following this recipe for a great first day of school, you might want to: ➤ Greet students at the door and answer these questions for students right away: ➨ Where do I sit? ➨ Am I in the right classroom? ➨ What should I be doing right now? ➤ Also, be prepared to manage students' behavior on the first day of school. Ensure that you have a positive classroom management system in place and ready to use if you need it! Well, there you have it, my recipe for a great first day of school. Be sure to download all the ideas with links AND the FREE airplane activity HERE! CHECK THIS OUT! I've put together a 100+ page guide for back to school for teachers. It includes tips, tools, and printables for classroom décor, classroom organization, lesson planning, community building, and planning the first day of school. It's absolutely FREE! Just click here to sign up. When you sign up, you'll get access to 6 mini-courses that cover everything Back to School including classroom design, organization, curriculum planning, and ways to build a positive classroom community. There's also a TON of exclusive freebies, bonuses, and videos! If you'd like to learn more and sign up, just click HERE. Thanks so much for stopping by, Mary Beth P.S. If you'd like MORE free resources for your classroom, be sure to join the Brain Waves Instruction club!
Does getting to know your students at the beginning of the year feel overwhelming? Whether you’re at a new school or just getting a new batch of kindergartners, finding the time to discover all your students’ passions and interests can take forever. This article will take 8 minutes to read.
Establishing a positive classroom culture can be a tricky endeavor. You want your classroom to be a warm and inviting place for students to feel welcome and for learning to feel enjoyable, yet at the
This making inference activity and lesson plan will help all of your readers succeed at making inferences and inferring as they independently read in your upper elementary and middle school classrooms. Making inference mentor text included.
Listen to this Special Ed Podcast with 15 great ideas for Functional Centers for students with Intellectual Disabilities and Autism in High School. Read more and subscribe today!
5 ways to help keep your middle and high school aged students engaged while working on conversational skills in speech therapy.
Are your older students fully engaged in your speech and language lessons? Get them motivated with these 5 tips, tools and activities!
10 inexpensive rewards to use in your middle school class.
The Ultimate Guide to High School Speech Therapy Activities provides Speech Language Pathologists a reference point for easily locating educational resources for older students. Many children are able to master their speech goals in elementary or middle school and no longer require therapy services. But all too often w
I created this graphic organizer to be used with any fictional story or novel. I also thought it would work well for the days my students earn time to watch a movie. I often feel like we are wasting time, even though they've earned it AND everything I show is based on literature, so I think this will do the trick for my guilt. Any Book Graphic Organizer
Grab a freebie and some tips for teaching vocabulary with all of the best research-based activities on just a single page!
Use informational picture books in your middle or high school classroom. Really.
Occupational Therapy activities for middle and high school online virtual teletherapy treatment sessions.
Four high-interest nonfiction passages are included for seventh grade ela and eighth grade ela.
Back to School Survey for Middle and High School Students - FREE and FUN way to meet your students.
Planning for Teletherapy can be so challenging and time consuming! Here is a list of all of my favorite tele-therapy websites to help make planning easier!
When students have following directions speech therapy goals for working on auditory comprehension skills, these coloring sheets are perfect!
This page contains free social emotional learning activities that can be used to help students in elementary and middle school.
Check out these middle school (and high school) speech therapy activities and materials for effective and motivating sessions in secondary!
Looking for a fun vocabulary activity? This extension is perfect for middle and high school to help encourage critical thinking and associations.
